Happy International Women’s Day!
This is a day for all women in the world to celebrate who they are and to find some comfort in their amazing and growing worth in the world.
The world is changing ladies and those multi-tasking,multi-skilled and highly flexible individuals are already at the helm of the future!
I will enjoy this day for everything that my ancestral matriarchs did before me and all that they went through in order to make my journey more accessible and joyful:)
My maternal grandmother (Yaya) had 8 children and was still climbing trees in the family orchard in her 50s picking fruit, in Kyrenia. She was an amazing matriarch who fiercely protected and nurtured her family. All the curtains,table cloths and napkins in the home were filet crotcheted by her. The aroma of baking that I recall as a child visiting her in Cyprus, went on to become what I now identify with home and feeling nurtured:) My connection with this incredible lady was an unspoken one and seemed to transcend time.
My paternal grandmother (Mama) also played a huge role in my life. She had 7 children and worked tirelessly for her family. She worked in the market selling her vegetables and spices, she helped build the family home, by carrying cement on her head and delivering this to the builders, when she was a young woman and in later years she had a provision shop in Enugu, Nigeria where my siblings, cousins and I, would assist her when we were children:) The stories of my grandmother’s youth always fascinated me and at times I would disappear back in time as if in a Chinua Achebe novel to imagine all the sounds, smells and sights of that time.
Both ladies experienced the tragedy of war and it’s personal and profound effects on their families. Both never knew each other, but the similarities always cause me to wonder just how close we all really are. Never mind the the distance of the land and the diversity of the Greek and Nigerian culture, both these ladies knew the true essence of what it is to be a leading matriarch:)
Moving with speed and grace, through their chores and lives, both these women have gifted me with a love of movement and physicality and for that I thank them and feel blessed to have learnt from them:)
Today, I honour and pay homage to these 2 amazing women. My late Maternal Grandmother Maria and my surviving Paternal Grandmother Chinwe:) I am humbled by all that they have accomplished in their lives to make mine better:)
Many women and men around the world will have had this connection with grandmothers or an equally great female mentor, think of them today and have a wonderful and happy International Women’s Day, Women and Ladies of the world:)
“Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it.”
Maya Angelou
